Walter Bishop’s back and doing some more kooky stuff. Source: Carla Day

The episode 2 weeks ago focused on separating Ichabod’s life from that of the Horseman’s. To do so, Abbie (per the urging of Katrina while in the middle of driving) must find a man known as the Sin Eater to purge the sin linking Ichabod to Death. This becomes a problem when he gets abducted by Freemasons (led by James Frain, no less!), who then proceed to determine if he is truly Ichabod Crane by referring to an eyewitness account from his wife. Once they have ascertained his identity, they ask him to kindly kill himself to stop the Horseman.

This episode focuses on Ichabod’s backstory, to the time where he first meets Katrina while on a mission to interrogate freed slave Arthur Bernard, using time-tested methods such as repeated bludgeoning while the subject is tied to a chair. Ichabod does not follow orders blindly, however; he is never the one to actually lay a hand on Bernard, and feels that the public hangings cross a line. He makes a few complaints about the treatment of the townspeople to Colonel Tarleton, who implies that Ichabod will get the noose if he does not follow orders. Even though it may have been in the 18th century, I highly doubt that disobeying orders would warrant the death penalty; if that’s the case then the demon masquerading as Tarleton does not blend in very well.

Ichabod’s sin is revealed to be self-inflicted: while taking Bernard out into the woods to dispose of the ex-slave, he decides to spare the man’s life, but not before Tarleton catches up and dispatches Bernard himself, Ichabod blaming himself for the events that have transpired. The commander then confronts Ichabod and wounds him before vanishing. Afterwards, Ichabod makes his way to Katrina’s abode and utters the last few words that Bernard told him: “Order from Chaos” to have her accept him to fight for the Americans. It takes the manifestation of Arthur Bernard while Ichabod is meeting with the Sin Eater–now known to us as Henry Parrish–to finally forgive himself and let the man literally eat blood that is representative of the sin of guilt. This probably won’t be the only time we’ll see him around.

The episode begins with a young boy (who goes by the name of Thomas Grey) in medieval garb who is playing by himself when a little girl dressed in all white shows herself to him and lures him away from the safe confines of his home. She promptly disappears and all of a sudden a horseman begins chasing the boy into the outskirts of Sleepy Hollow.

When Ichabod and Abbie come across this boy (who has already been picked up by paramedics), he mutters something that the former realises is Old English, which later on sounds suspiciously similar to German. As he is being sent off to the hospital, black veins travel up and around his body, which later passes on to nearby victims who see the Horseman coming for them before dying. The two do more research on the horseman that the boy tells them about and learn that it is the Horseman of Pestilence Conquest that is trying to join the Horseman of Death.

As more people gradually become sick, Ichabod and Abbie retrace Thomas’ steps, they discover the Lost Colony of Roanoke, where all the inhabitants have the same black veins as Thomas, though none of them display any signs of sickness. When questioned about this, the chieftain declares that it is the spirit of Virginia Dare protecting them from the horseman that plagues them. As Ichabod returns to the hospital with Abbie, he discovers that he has contracted the illness and is sedated to keep from freaking out.

During his stupor, he temporarily reunites with his wife Katrina. She laments that she did not call out to him, and for him to be here otherwise would mean that he was dead, “or close to it.” She explains to him that they are both in Purgatory, where Moloch oversees all and decides whether the souls in this realm deserve absolution or damnation. If my theology is correct, that’s not what happens in Purgatory. Purgatory, as the name implies, is a place where a soul can find redemption and move into heaven, Before it can do so, it must purge itself of all the sins it has accumulated.

Anyway, he wakes up and Abbie manages to convince Captain Irving to sneak Ichabod and the boy back to the lost colony, being chased by Conquest. They make it to the town’s small reservoir and Ichabod jumps into it with Thomas. Just as Conquest catches up with them, it dematerialises and it’s revealed that Thomas and the rest of the clan are dead all along, explaining the antiquated clothing and language. Of course, that raises questions about how other people can see and contract Thomas’ illness; I guess we can say that magic did it.

Meanwhile, there seems to be a subplot building around Abbie’s ex-boyfriend, Luke Morales, who’s trying to dig into Ichabod’s background, even though it’s apparent to us viewers. An interesting thing to note is that Ichabod’s cover is well maintained, as evidenced when Luke calls Oxford University and is told that an Ichabod Crane does exist and “is currently on loan to the Sleepy Hollow police department.”

In my post reviewing this series’ pilot episode, I mentioned how the order of the Horsemen appearing have been thrown around. A thing that irked me in this episode was the colour pairing of the horsemen. If you’re familiar with the mythos, it should be like this, in the order which they are supposed to appear in the Book of Revelations:

I was very impressed with this episode and it handled the subject matter much better than the one about the school shooting. For one, the episode begins with Kurt’s voiceover about how they’ve had held Finn’s funeral and that he’s gone. No mention of how he died, just that he did. Granted, even I too am curious to the manner of how it happened, but as Kurt says, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances; we should be celebrating the life he had and how he changed everyone else’s. Despite this frankness, I think it takes away from the closure that a lot of fans wanted. They’ve had to do very few takes, as both cast and crew were incredibly emotional while filming during production.

The episode was broken down into several sections to give certain characters enough screentime to display their feeling.

Boxing Finn’s possessions. Kurt, Burt, and Carole are slowly sorting away Finn’s belongings for charity or for keeping. There are a few call-backs to some earlier episodes in the series, such as the football from the first football game they won and the lamp that Finn and Burt had an angry outburst over. Kurt picks up Finn’s letterman jacket and decides to keep it as Burt talks about how he regrets not being as close as he could have been.

I should’ve given him more hugs. We’d fist-bump or we’d high-five. But I should’ve given him more hugs.

-Burt Hummel

The memorial tree. At the beginning of the hour, Kurt buys a tree at a cheap price and Sue plants it in the spot where Quinn and Finn made out for the first time, only to learn that someone had dug it up and stolen it. At first it just seems rather selfish of Puck to desecrate a tribute to Finn, but then after the brief spat with Kurt in front of the Dumpster that he was thrown into during the pilot the act becomes rationalised when Puck argues that while Kurt has an entire room to remember Finn by, he has nothing and even demands the letterman jacket under the belief that Kurt will ruin it. Kurt refuses.
He later has a sit-down with Coach Beiste and he confesses that Finn was the guy who would always steer him in the right direction. After some more consoling, he agrees to put the tree back and decides to go off into the Army. In terms of looks and roughness, I can see this as a path for Puck.

If I start crying, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.

-Noah Puckerman

Santana’s persistent breakdown. Over the course of the episode Santana interrupts a few of the songs with her leaving or breaking down halfway through her song. When Kurt finally confronts her, she breaks down and admits that she wanted to surprise everyone by saying nice things about Finn (which she rarely, if ever, did) but just couldn’t go through with it in the end. Kurt consoles her and asks her to say it to him right there and she eventually gives in. He leaves afterwards, but not before giving her the letterman jacket.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from Finn dying, it’s that shame is a wasted emotion.

-Kurt Hummel

Sue dealing with Finn while holding the school together. Sue is as crass as ever in this episode, Even so, she tells Will and Emma to get it together and help the students out in any way, not to mention planting the aforementioned memorial tree. Also, when Santana rushes out the first time and discovers new Cheerios! putting out the candles, she storms into the new principal’s office and demands to know why she told them to do so, Sue calmly responds that they posed a fire hazard and barely reacted when Santana shoved her. When Santana comes back to apologise, Sue reveals that she feels devastated that Finn died thinking that she was a cruel person and that he would have made a good teacher.

He was such a good guy. I’ll never get to tell him. There’s no lesson here. There’s no happy ending. There’s just nothing. He’s just gone.

-Sue Sylvester

Will holding it in together until the very end. Halfway through the episode Will walks in on Emma just as she finishes “consoling” Tina, and she remarks that after almost a month, he hasn’t mourned at all. He brushes it off and continues about teaching the glee club. He also discovers Santana putting up wanted posters for Finn’s letterman jacket and implies Puck had stolen it–a rather low move for any teacher to make. At the very end, Emma walks back into her and Will’s apartment and finds him sobbing into the garment.

The next episode, “A Katy or a Gaga,” will be aired on November 7th, 2013.

After almost a week of sitting on my DVR, I’ve finally got around to watching the season premiere of Bones and the series premiere of the new show, Sleepy Hollow! The people over at FOX were quite clever by using Bones both within the show and through promos to introduce this new thriller starring Tom Mison.

You might lose your head if you don’t keep up with this. Image by Paul Shirey